Rocksolver uses Kickofflabs to find its first customer

Rocksolver for 2-dimensional applications like stone paving is a working prototype and is now ready for its first customer.

Thankfully there are services like Kickofflabs (that’s kick-off-labs, not kick-of-flabs which is about fat people playing soccer) which make it really easy (and cheap) to construct and release a landing or “coming soon” page.

I’ve just composed a landing page using Kickofflabs and it’s here:

http://first-rocksolver-customer.kickofflabs.com/

If you’d like to be the first to know when Rocksolver is released as software-as-a-service (SaaS) or if you’d like to be the world’s first customer visit the landing page (see screenshot below) and register with your email address.

If you are the first customer you’ll need to send us photos of 20 to 50 stone pavers and the dimensions of a rectangular area to be paved and then we’ll send you the computer-generated layout plan, for $10. We’ll let you know how to take the photos.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Rocksolver chosen as finalist in the Australian Innovation Challenge

Last year I entered the Australian Innovation Challenge competition run by The Australian newspaper and Shell. The Rocksolver entry came from a small, start-up company rather than a university or large company so it was placed in the Backyard Innovation category where it was chosen as a finalist.

The winner in the Backyard Innovation category was Jeremy Woodhill with his Smart GPO power point. Rocksolver did receive some good feedback though:

Have a look at the short video of the Backyard Innovation category judges having a chat (http://video.theaustralian.com.au/2174868032/Backyard-category-finalists) where Dr Terry Cutler (a director of CSIRO) and Dr James Bradfield Moody (Executive Director of the Development section in CSIRO) talk favourably about Rocksolver.

Rocksolver Patents in Australia and USA

Yesterday I received in the mail the official patent document (the Letters Patent) for US patent number 7966159 and earlier this year I received the Letters Patent for Australian patent number 2005262259.

The patent application has yet to be examined in Europe so there it is still pending.

Thinking of the invention was very easy. Building a prototype to demonstrate proof-of-concept has required some work due to the need to develop original algorithms. Gaining patents has been challenging, particularly in the US where the patent examiners are tough judges of novelty. Now the fun part starts; getting the invention out into the hands of those who can benefit from it.

Rocksolver in The Weekend Australian

A couple of weeks ago Rocksolver was written up as part of the “Innovation Challenge” competition which is being run jointly by The Australian newspaper and Shell.

The online version of the article is here.

Rocksolver Investor Presentation – 01 Nov. 2011

On Tuesday 1st November 2011 at 5:30pm at the NSW Government’s Trade and Investment Centre on level 47 of the MLC Centre in Sydney the Rocksolver team and I will be presenting Rocksolver as an investment opportunity.

To attend this event please register here:

http://rocksolver20111101.eventbrite.com/

Rocksolver in China

During September I travelled to China to deliver a paper on Rocksolver at the NOCMAT sustainable construction technology conference in Changsha and to present Rocksolver to the Keiretsu Forum in Shanghai.

The photo above was taken after the Keiretsu Forum presentation. My friend Daniel Li is 2nd from the right.

Whilst in Changsha and Shanghai I kept my eye out for contemporary uses of unprocessed rock and found it often being used for decorative purposes in landscaping and even on a new bridge (see photos below). There is also widespread use of unprocessed rock for building the infrastructure needed to support and protect the rapidly evolving built environment; for example, river levees and retaining walls.

Sane Paving

The photo below shows the world’s first computer-designed sane (not crazy) paving. I digitised the shapes of the rock pavers by first taking a photo of each one then approximating their shapes with simple polygons then our prototype Rocksolver software application packed the polygons into a rectangular shape.

The top image is the output of the Rocksolver application. The middle image is the real-world paving job laid out according to the Rocksolver plan. I had to choose the last three small rocks by hand because Rocksolver is still in its first prototype stage so sometimes needs a helping hand. The lower image is the paving job created using Sketchup. You can find it and download it into your Sketchup landscaping models by searching for the Intresto collection on Google’s 3dwarehouse.

The next thing for us to do is to make Rocksolver faster and smarter so it fits rocks closer together. We will soon release a free smart phone app to quickly digitise the shapes of pavers then we plan to have Rocksolver online so anyone can upload their data and get Rocksolver to perform its magic and supply a layout plan.